Paper Dolls
by RaichuTec
Summary: And Touga reaps what he has sown. [Yaoi]


(Standard Disclaimer: Utena characters and settings belong to their respective owners. I promise to put them away when I'm done playing with them.)

Author's Voice: This goes along the same lines as When Staring Into the Abyss... and Night Ride. I'm not done yet with these little ficlets, as I do have a plan for the 'future'.

**Paper Dolls**

"I hate you."

Touga lifted a crimson brow, remaining silent for a long moment after the sudden pronouncement from the youth stretched out beside him. Saionji wasn't even looking at him, rolled over onto his side to face the window, gazing vacantly at the sunbeams lighting the floors with their golden gleam. One arm dangled over the edge of the bed, fingers idly brushing against tile flooring. Sitting up, Touga drew the sheets around his lap, resting his arms atop his knees. The golden light haloed Saionji's head, turning evergreen curls a lighter shade of green. He reached out to touch at those green-gold ringlets, rebuked by Saionji's hand sharply lifting to slap his fingers away.

"Don't. Don't pretend anymore," he snapped. The scowl returned to his features, violet eyes narrowing in their typical angry manner. Reaching down, he grabbed the sheets and pulled them up to his chest, clutching them there to deny Touga the opportunity to gaze at his nudity any further.

Crimson brows furrowing, Touga canted his head silently toward his best friend, recently become his lover. "What brought this on?" He leaned over Saionji, looming there with silken locks of red-gold hair drifting lazily over the other's arm. "You enjoyed yourself well enough last night."

"As if it meant anything to you," came the gruff reply.

Touga reached out to touch him again, Saionji flinching his shoulder in another attempt to rebuff him, but the president of the student council wasn't daunted this time. Fingers splayed over warm flesh, kneading the muscle of his shoulder idly. "You know that's not true, Saionji. Perhaps we weren't making love but--"

"Making love? No, you're right about that," Saionji snorted derisively, turning his head to glare balefully at Touga. "I wouldn't even call it sex. More like you fucking me."

Silence filled the room again. Touga could swear the dustmotes make a soft crunch of sound as they drifted to the floor. Saionji turned away again, exhaling in a huff. Usually Touga could just leave him alone when he behaved like this and return later to act as if nothing ever scratched the polished surface of their friendship. But in gazing at him now, he could see the nicks, the scratches and gouges that divided them. Most of them he knew were his own making.

"Saion-- Kyouichi... " he began, and found himself trailing off again. Words failed him, for what he wanted to do was be honest. All that swirled within his mouth and dangled off the tip of his tongue were more honeyed lies. Akio had been too good a teacher.

Saionji finally looked back toward him, expression shifting from abject anger to a wary perplexity. "What, no purring reassurances? No mocking smile? No condescending rebukes?"

"Stop, please," he asked quietly, closing his eyes and drawing his gaze away. Guilt was a heavy weight to those who realized it. His deeds came back to him with a dark stain. "You have every right to hate me."

Shifting, Saionji rolled onto his back before sitting up, propping his weight onto a palm against the mattress. His silent stare bore into Touga like a drill, seeing not the smug bastard who had been just as much a puppet of Akio as he had been a student to his dark ways of manipulation, but rather a crumpled paper doll, cast aside.

"Is this because you lost Utena?"

That brought Touga to wince visibly, despite himself. Lowering his gaze, he let the curtain of his hair drift over his features, to hide his expression. But, Saionji gave him no such escape, reaching up to brush his fingers through the silken strands, luxuriating in how they trickled through his fingers like rain. "Akio cast you aside, too, didn't he. Ah, Touga, beaten by someone better at your own game, at last." His words were blunt as hammers, unforgiving and unrelenting. "Did you love her? Really love her? Sometimes I don't think so. She was eternal to you, but not--"

"Enough," Touga growled. Cornflower blue eyes shot Saionji a deadly look. Once that would have made his friend back down immediately, the pack leader clearly in command of a challenger. But this time, violet eyes returned the gaze without relenting. Instead, Saionji leaned in closer, so close they're noses nearly touched.

"You lost her, Touga. You tried to play a game of chess with a master and he's already won the game. Checkmate. You're lying in bed with one of his pawns."

"You're really going to make sure I receive all that I deserve, aren't you," he breathed.

"You deserve to rot in hell," Saionji replied with a shrug. "But it's over. The Ends of the World have no use for us, Akio has his princess. The revolution will be soon and neither of us will be there for it." And without giving Touga a chance for rebuttal, he captured his mouth in a kiss.

Touga growled, grasping Saionji's shoulders to push him down onto his back again and loom above him, their mouths barely parting for a second before locking again, tongues twined. Rather than lie there, this time, and allow Touga to do as he will, Saionji grabbed at the mane of red hair, pulling Touga's head back to break the kiss.

"Do you love her?"

"Damn you, Kyouichi. I've never loved anyone."

"I thought not. I don't like what you became, Touga. What Akio made you. If you intend to keep treading his path, you can count me out."

Touga narrowed his gaze, "I was not the only one manipulated. Even you were, or have you forgotten the injury you caused me."

It was Saionji's turn to suck his breath in, the reminder of his past insanities brought to light, "That wasn't fair."

"Life isn't fair," the redhead replied and dove in for another kiss. They wrestled there on the sheets, Touga pinning Saionji's wrists above his head, Saionji wrapping his legs tightly around Touga's waist. As most of their lives had been, even the act of sex was a battle, a struggle between them for dominance. But, eventually Saionji submitted, allowing Touga inside where both of them could forget for a time. Forget Utena, forget the Rose Bride, forget the way Akio manipulated them both. To cleanse the stain that darkened their souls and reclaim their bodies as their own.

"Do you still hate me?" Touga purred, an arm draped over Saionji's waist as their breathing stilled and the sweat cooled off their skin. Evergreen locks brushed aside, Saionji waited a long time before bothering to reply with a simple shake of his head.

"This isn't over," he warned, fingertips lightly caressing his lover's cheek, violet eyes half-lidded in exhaustion and contentment.

Touga stretched out beside him, yawning like the cat who'd been eyeing the canary and finally consumed it, "I know. Do you remember... before we found that girl with the pink hair."

"You mean Tenjou Utena."

"Hai, her..." Strange, but suddenly Touga found her name fleeting in his mind. As if she were a dream and now that he was waking, the details were growing fuzzy.

"What about it?"

"I struck you too hard in one of our duels."

Saionji shrugged lightly as he closed his eyes, weary enough to doze for awhile. "I remember. And you bandaged my hand. What about it?"

"Nothing..." Touga murmured, nuzzling against the green curls around Saionji's throat. _Nothing, but to pray I can bandage the heart just as easily._

(Fin.)


End file.
